


Hitchcock Blond

by luna65



Category: The Cars (Band)
Genre: Gen, POV Multiple, Soulmates, unrequited love if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 16:24:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19772002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luna65/pseuds/luna65
Summary: The birth of an enigma...or what happens when you finally embody what you always meant to be.





	Hitchcock Blond

**Author's Note:**

> I have been wanting to write this FOR EVER (okay, maybe not that long, but a looooong time) and it's just a fictional exploration of Ric and Ben's bond and my (equally fictional) take on Ben becoming a blond (the first time) and thus embodying that archetype of the cool distant siren type of lead singer, as was his role in the band. It's a tone poem of sorts, I suppose, more about mood than anything else.
> 
> Note 1: though I know the phrase is actually "Hitchcock Blonde" men are blonds and women are blondes (I don't make the rules).
> 
> Note 2: For those who don't know or haven't read his bio, Shauna was Ben's dog (she's mentioned in the Milkwood song "Lincoln Park" - _Lovely lady, would you like to walk with me and my white wolf dog, Shauna Blue-eyes, warmth of sunshine._ ).

_I: another dead rock star_

They were so close to fame, and they knew it. Full of their own failures and longings, but the hunger would never allow for anything other than the kind of focus which might cause some to claim they were crazy.

You _have_ to be. Especially when you know the other side of dreams.

The sticky press of another Boston summer, plenty of good will and scrutiny buoying them above the sultry streets, but no sign of imminent rescue. The promise was close, stalking close. It shimmered in the distance like the heat rising from the pavement.

Their daily stroll, out for coffee and cigarettes and a sandwich to share. Passing by the neighborhood newsstand, Ric grabbed his shoulder and brought them both to a sudden halt.

“Whoa there,” Ben teased.

“Look,” Ric said, pointing to a nearby headline.

“Oh. Damn.”

“Another dead rock star. Is that the goal, I wonder? Like, there’s a point where there’s nothing left to do but become a fetish object.”

Ben picked up one of the papers. “They’re not saying how, but it had to be ugly, you know? When you’re that young.”

Ric leafed through a tabloid. “This one does, and you’re right.”

“Not ‘cause I wanna be. But sure, the king becomes a god, right? A sacrifice or something.”

“Like the Aztecs.”

“Or the Romans, maybe?”

“Hmm. So we want that, do we?”

“It doesn’t have to be like that for us. You’re too fuckin’ cynical, for one.”

Ric laughed. After a moment Ben laughed as well.

“They’re gonna revere you, y’know,” Ric said, his voice low and serious.

“Catch anyone doin’ it and I’ll kick their ass.”

Ric chuckled again, took the change out of his pocket to count it. “You’re too damn nice, man, you’ll never make a decent rock star.”

Ben smiled. **That** smile, the one which none could resist. It said _And why wouldn’t I be?_

They read a bit more about the fallen king, then they moved along. That night, Elliot wanted to play “Jailhouse Rock” at the end of the gig, but he got stared down in that kind of telepathy a band eventually develops. Theirs was nigh impenetrable.

_II: ...they shock me into sense_

In the enactment of their master plan David kept talking about personas, and Ric was into it, saying that sometimes he thought people were more useful as symbols than as actual people.

“Like a fetish?” Ben asked, recalling their conversation from what seemed years ago. When it happened for real, it happened so fast. Somehow they all thought they’d have more time to revel in it as it was happening; but each day slipped by like the landscape outside a fast-moving vehicle.

“Sure. I think you should go blond.”

“How blond?”

“Striking. Like how people can’t take their eyes off Shauna when she’s with you.”

“So platinum blond? I dunno, man - it’s so...fake.”

“That’s the whole point! You’re a distant ideal, aloof and cool and the kind of perfection that makes people stop dead in their tracks.”

He blushed, and he didn’t think _anything_ could make him blush, but...Ric had such high standards in his mind. He didn’t apply them to the world, usually, because he knew he’d only be disappointed in doing so. But he was talking present tense.

_You think I’m perfect?_

It was certainly easy, most of the time, to be that person who others seemed to see. They expected him to be the life of the party and so he just was. But now, there would be this guy, up there, and he would have to find a way to understand that role.

“It’s like...a phrase I wrote down the other night...hmm, where did I put it…”

Ric riffled through his pockets and his guitar case, looking for the notepad he always carried with him. He found it, its’ cover a particularly glaring shade of orange. He flipped through it, intense eyes quickly scanning whatever he had scribbled within it.

“Yeah yeah, here it is - frozen fire.”

“That’s a contradiction.”

“Exactly. You smolder, but at a remove. No one could actually touch you.”

“ **Never?** ” He said it as if it were an eventuality.

Ric chuckled. “Has anyone, really?”

Ben understood it was a quip but then he started to wonder about the nature of love, of desire. Did it allow for a deeper kind of understanding between people? Or was it all about that fire which erased common sense?

“Like how a girl says _you only care about what you see_.”

“Remember what Dave said? People hear with their eyes too.”

Ben snorted, it seemed silly but then he really started to think about it. And maybe, if people had him in their heads when they listened to the music, what would that do? Would they like it even more? 

_It’s time to do what is necessary._

“Do you really think I could?”

“Embody a contradiction? If _anyone_ could, it’s you. Beautiful blue-eyed boy with a voice to match who is also tough and cool? In your _sleep_.”

“Ahhhh c’mon, you know I can’t take that kinda pressure!”

Another joke. The pressure had been steadily increasing for years now, to climb the ladder _high enough_ , finally. This boho trip was getting as old as they felt, and that was years older than they actually were.

“You’ve _always_ been enough to take anyone’s breath away. If you don’t know that by now...what else can I say to convince you?”

Unused to being the one propped up - that had always been _his_ job - Ben squirmed just a bit. He knew so very well what it was like to be admired by everyone, all of the occurrences expressed in specific ways but they all added up to the same thing: _I want to be you, I want to be with you, I want, I want, I want -_

The allure of the words underneath those other words: _you are Desire personified_.

Was he ready for that? _Finally?_ He had placed his trust in Ric’s vision for a decade now, and so if not **now** then when?

“Okay,” he said.

_III: They wanna crack your crossword smile_

He had wanted to witness the change apart from the context of the band. This was just between them: what he thought, what his gut reaction might be. A particular curiosity gripped him hard, he felt his skin crawl with gooseflesh to think about how it might turn out.

He waited outside a bar they frequented, smoking and staring at pedestrians, inventing a story for each of them, stories full of intrigue and tragedy and strange coincidences, and thus did not initially spy an angel in black leather coming down the street, Cuban heels clicking. It was just like the moment in _Vertigo_ where Judy becomes Madeleine...again. Who was this? He squinted, but then as the other waited at the nearby crosswalk and he saw the smirk...he knew.

_Damn._

“I hear you’re looking for a bass player,” Ben said when he finally walked up to where Ric had been waiting.

“I’ve been looking for **you** , Hitchcock blond,” Ric replied, and it almost sounded like a song.

The others nodded and smiled when they came into rehearsal, but David studied Ben for a few moments, assessing the transformation.

“If you always look like _that_ , we can’t lose,” he finally said.

“Ice princess,” Greg quipped, playing a suitably royal horn flourish on his synth.

“Wicked cool,” Elliot pronounced in that particular Masshole kind of way, and they all laughed.

_I feel like I might freeze or burn_  
_feel like I might take a turn_  
_off my hopes so low_  
_into the spin of this vertigo._

Oh it needed work, but there would be a way to articulate this particular witchery which Ben now practiced. It was only a dye job but it seemed to allow him to fully access that hauteur which was exactly what the persona required. Always a confident and attractive man, he was now a total star, even as he was cracking jokes and settling himself in with the others as he always did.

Waiting for David to finish tuning his drums, Ric leaned over and murmured, “Is it true blonds have more fun?”

Ben smirked again, and it held the power to stun as always. 

“Stick around and I’ll let ya know.”


End file.
